Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1887-01-11

Uranus and Neptune, and to planets smaller
than the earth, to all the planets of our sun Is
family, and also to all the planets attending
| upon the other suns.
But also the same reasoning applies With
| special force and directness to the sun him
| self and to his brother suns, the stars. The
| sun indeed we can examine, and he has been
| actually caught in the act of expelling mat
| ter from his interior with velocities SO great
| that the expelled matter can never have re-
| turned to him.
Observe the evidence is not speculative. A
mineral indicates by its structure the circum-
| stances under which it was formed. Thus
| then we can say with confidence that meteor
| ic masses were formed under such conditions
of temperature, pressure and com bination as
exist only in the interior of large orbs in a
sunlike state. We can reason out their orr
gin then quite satisfactorily, and this is how
the reasoning proceeds: We must suppose
silicons and the metals not combined with
oxygen as they are now in the earth. This
implies intense heat preventing them from
combining. When eventually or locally OK
ygen came into action it united first with sill
icon and magnesium, for which it has great
or affinity than with iron and nickel. IF the
gas were all taken up by the former substan-
ces iron and nickel would be left free, dis
semnated among the stony silicates. This
is what is observed in meteorites, and NJ
Daubree has been able to confirm the inter-
pretation of the facts by experiment. The
interior Of earth tells us the same story
The meteoric masses, of which some few
may but the majority cannot have come
from the earth tell us then in effect that the
interiors of the stars, or of such other orbs
not now stars, but once sunlike, as they pro-
ceeded from, are akin in structure to the in
terror of our own earth. In analyzing me-
teorite we are in fact analyzing a specimen
from the interior of sun. Millions, nay
hundreds of millions, of years may have
passed since that meteoric body was elected;
many journeys it may have made from solar
system to solar system before, reaching ours,
it came into casual conflict with our earth
and SO brought its interesting career to an
end. But though it tells us in reality of the
condition of some sunlike orb, not as such
orb is now, but it was millions of years
back in the past ian orb now perhaps Opaque
and life supporting like our earth, OF cold
and long since dead like the moon), the rec
ord may be accepted as telling us what is the
structure ana condition of probably every
orb in space-sun, planet or satellite-dur-
ing the time when it is passing through that
sunlike stage which is the early youth of ev-
cry orbs career.
How strange are the thoughts then which
are suggested by meteoric mass in one of
our museums! That small mass has passed
through regions of space SO vast that by
comparison not the sun only, but the whole
solar system seems minute. 1t has been
known 20 terrestials for but few years, |
but its birth in the celestial spaces must be |
set millions of years back; and lastly that |
cold, dull lump of metalized stone tells of |
the intense heat of the suns interior, of |
inconceivable disturbance, and of noise so |
tremulous that in comparison with it all |
forms of uproar known on the earth seems |
like dead silence